As Mike’s Hard Lemonade entered its 25th year as America’s first-ever and top-selling hard lemonade, the brand launched a new campaign – Hard Days Deserve a Hard Lemonade – to position Mike’s as the ultimate reward after a long day. Green Street Studios was charged with bringing the campaign to life on social and creating a conversation around the brand. Our objectives were to:
Drive campaign awareness
Generate a 5% increase in social engagement
Green Street Studios tapped into a key insight: that more than half of employed Americans feel they aren’t adequately rewarded for their hard work. Our strategy was to use the new Hard Days Deserve a Hard Lemonade campaign as a platform to reward our customers and social fans for their hard day’s work.
Our idea was to create the Mike’s Hard Days Rewards Merch Store and Social Giveaway to reward customers and fans with custom Mike’s merch that embodies the spirit of the Hard Days Deserve a Hard Lemonade campaign. Additionally, to drive awareness of the new campaign, our idea was to spark a lively conversation on social by using our campaign characters "Hank & Joel" as a comedic lever and asking social fans to tell us about their hard days for a chance to win a merch reward.
To bring the idea to life, we designed a whole line of custom Mike’s merch for Hard Days–like hard hats, T-shirts, jackets, blankets, sweat suits, adult onesies, socks, dog toys and more. The merch store was launched with a custom Shopify storefront at MikesHardDaysRewards.com. On Instagram we teased out the launch of the merch store, then unveiled it using our Hard Days campaign characters “Hank & Joel", along with engaging content that got our fans talking about the Mike’s merch they want.
To augment the merch store launch, we also tapped into an existing partnership with hard-working actor Lamorne Morris to generate further excitement and drive fans to MikesHardDaysRewards.com. (Please note: Due to contractual obligations, we are unable to feature Lamorne Morris in any video assets. See static image submissions).
Allowing two weeks for the merch store to gain momentum, we then launched our Hard Days Rewards Social Giveaway to reward our hard-working customers and fans. With a kickoff post featuring Lamorne Morris against a backdrop of the merch items, we asked social fans to tell us about their hard days for a chance to win a merch reward. Our Instagram feed also featured “Hank & Joel” and engaging merch content to fuel the excitement.
To increase our engagement rate, fans had to follow Mike’s Hard Lemonade’s Instagram, like and comment on one or all of the four Hard Days Rewards Giveaway posts and tag a friend with #MikesHardDaysRewards for a chance to win up to a $225 merch reward.
To keep the giveaway top of mind and the conversation going strong, we even had “Hank & Joel” react to comments with funny sentiments like, “You did the work, you get the merch”, “Bleah that’s not hard work” and "Now that deserves a reward."
Our social fans were highly engaged throughout the entire campaign time period. The best part? The Hard Days Rewards Merch Store continues to delight Mike's Hard Lemonade customers and social fans. It has become an evergreen brand builder and social shopping asset for Mike's Hard Lemonade, with dollars spent being put back into seasonal inventory like holiday items and new summer merch launching in May.
The launch of the Mike’s Hard Days Rewards Merch Store and Social Giveaway was a highly successful initiative and exceeded our goal of social engagement:
7.2% Increase in follower engagement during the campaign time period August 7-September 17, 2024. (28.5% increase over the same time period in 2023 and exceeding our goal by 2.2%)
972 Giveaway Entries during the Hard Days Social Giveaway from August 22-September 17, 2024.
20 Lucky Winners were rewarded with up to a $225 merch reward, which they claimed for popular items at MikesHardDaysRewards.com like T-shirts, bandanas, socks, trucker hats and more.
828 New Followers on Instagram
248 Shares about our Mike’s merch
31,459 Visits to the Mike’s Hard Days Rewards Merch Store (MikesHardDaysRewards.com) during the launch period August 7-September 17, 2024 and more than 39,000 site visitors to date.
*Data sourced from Sprout Social
